A fuse is an electrical device which has a low resistance conductive path that is designed to be broken when an electrical current through the low resistance conductive path exceeds a specified limit. Electrical fuses are utilized in semiconductor integrated circuits for various applications including, for example, enabling redundant circuitry, programming one-time programmable read-only memory (PROM), configuring programmable logic devices (PLDs), trimming elements in analog trimming circuitry, implementing chip identification circuitry, etc. The dimensions of integrated fuse devices in semiconductor circuitry is limited by the allowable photolithographic minimal dimensions. Moreover, the fabrication of integrated fuse devices using conventional CMOS technologies can require multiple deposition and lithographic masking steps, which is time consuming and expensive. In this regard, the amount and complexity of additional processing steps that are incorporated as part of a semiconductor process flow to fabricate integrated fuse devices should be minimized to reduce the fabrication costs and processing time for constructing semiconductor chips with integrated fuse devices. Furthermore, the footprint area occupied by integrated fuse devices should be minimized, as well as the power consumption of integrated fuse devices.